Q&A: Siemens Rulestream Engineer-to-Order

It was back in the fall of 2009 when Siemens PLM Software bought
Rulestream. Since then, silence.

Rulestream had been founded in Cleveland by programmers experienced in
knowledge-based engineering software. They took a different approach in
developing their ETO software (engineer to order) by storing ETO product
configuration rules in a relational database. This unique approach meant it
was easy to handle versioning and history.

When Siemens PLM Software announced their purchase, they promised to
support "current and future Rulestream customers. The company also plans to
tightly integrate Rulestream with NX ... and Teamcenter software." Other
than moving the office to Troy Michigan and setting up a Web page for
Rulestream, we heard no more.

"We don't want to be so quiet anymore."

To learn more, we spoke with Brian Grogan, director of Rulestream
products. He explained that his staff has spent the last few years on
integrating Rulestream into the Siemens PLM business and into the product
portfolio, primarily with NX and Teamcenter, because they hadn't been before
the acquisition. Before the acquisition, Rulestream had already supported
SolidWorks, AutoCAD DWG, and Pro/E; Solid Edge will come later.

Q&A

Q: How does being part of Siemens change things?
A: We now have the weight of Siemens PLM behind us. Rulestream becomes a
mission-critical system for manufacturing companies, where it touches almost
every order and/or proposal for their ETO products. Most companies look at a
vendor’s size and financial stability before making such an important
technology decision. That was sometimes a challenge as a small company, but
being part of Siemens gives our customers confidence we’ll be able to
support their long term needs. Also, being able to leverage the technology
components within the Siemens PLM portfolio, such as JT 3D visualization,
means that we can bring new features to market faster.

Q: Big companies like to buy from big companies?
A: Big companies like to buy from companies they see as having the
longevity to be a long term partner. I think that is true for all companies.

Q: Is Rulestream purely an enterprise size solution? I assume it
is not for small biz.
A: Medium or large size companies generally adopt our software, although
we do have small companies as customers.

Q: What is the pricing cost?
A: Pricing depends on a number of factors, including the number of users.
I don't believe I can provide general pricing, however when we do quote a
price to a customer we also articulate the business benefits and ROI.

Q: Why would a manufacturing choose your software?
A: We offer our customers the ability to automate complex ETO processes
without the need for custom programming. However, we are not just focused on
automating sales proposal and engineering processes, we are equally focused
on helping them improve how they manage their product configuration rules
and knowledge. We also provide out-of-the-box integrations to the authoring
tools and systems that our customers commonly use within their processes,
such as CAD, Microsoft office, database systems, and PLM in terms of
Teamcenter. Our Microsoft Office integration even includes Visio to allow 2D
schematics to drive the ETO process or output as technical documentation. We
support several different deployment environments, including web deployment,
desktop deployment, and batch processing. This means it is usable by many
different people in the organization.

Q: Who are some of your customers?
A: We have customers in a broad range of industries including Power
Generation and Distribution Equipment, Industrial Machinery, HVAC, Oil and
Gas, and Specialty Vehicles to name a few. Babcock & Wilcox, S.A. Armstrong
and TLT Babcock are some customer examples.

Q: And who are your main competitors?
A: We often compete with sales configurators, such as those found in ERP
systems like SAP. Actually, our biggest competitor is the home-grown system,
yet it is also our biggest opportunity. Fifteen years ago, there were no
commercial ETO offerings, so manufacturing companies made their own, which
are now reaching their end of life and need replacing. This gives us the
opportunity. Another driving factor for legacy system replacement is when
companies introduce new technology, like 3D CAD or PLM, because that often
forces a costly upgrade to their legacy ETO system which must now support
those system integrations.

Q: It seems to me that Rulestream used to be very hard to learn,
have you been improving the ease of use?
A: Actually, ease of use is one of our advantages and is one of the
reasons our customers’ site for selecting our technology. Even so, ease of
use is something we always want to improve upon. Also, ease of use has a
number of dimensions. For example, ease of rule authoring, ease of system
integration, and ease of deployment.

Q: What sort of training is required to learn Rulestream?
A: We offer a one week on-site training course to teach users how to
author rules within the system. We back that up with some consultative
support to coach them through their first implementation. However, our
customers are generally the ones entering the rules and building the process
automation, not our services team. Rulestream is a product that our
customers can implement themselves without having to contract a third party
to do it for them.

Q: What should students know before starting the course --
programming, math -- what are the prerequisites?
A: They should have "domain knowledge" and have some experience automating
a process, like writing spreadsheet automation or CAD automation. The
important thing is to understand how to break a problem down for automation,
or how to break a product down in terms of its configuration. They don't
need to be programmers.

Q: What is "domain knowledge"?
A: : It means they know about their product domain, such as machine
design.

Q: Is Rulestream partly or entirely Web based?
A: Sales people normally use the web browser interface, but inside the back
office the desktop client is typically used. Rulestream can also be deployed
as a web service.

Q: Can manufacturing company's customers interact with the ETO,
like ordering a customized computer from Dell?
A: Yes, some of our customers deploy Rulestream to their end customers or
dealer network. However, complex ETO equipment usually requires some manual
oversight and engineering, and online customer requests usually do not go
straight to being scheduled for manufacturing such as in the Dell use case.

Additional Information

About the Author

Ralph Grabowski is the owner of
upFront.eZine Publishing and hosts the
WorldCAD Access blog. He has written over 100 books and several hundred magazine articles about CAD. In addition, Ralph has served as technical editor for Cadalyst magazine, and has been a columnist for CADENCE and AutoCAD World.

Ralph holds a civil engineering degree from the University of British Columbia. He was awarded "Best CAD/AEC/PLM Editor" by Strategic Research in 2005, and received the CAD Society's "Community Award" in 2002.